Gadgetopia

rogerebert.com :: Answer Man: At some point, Roger Ebert slammed video games. I don’t know when — I thought it was in the Doom review, but I couldn’t find it there.

Anyway, some guy emailed his AnswerMan column about it to defend video games.

I was saddened to read that you consider video games an inherently inferior medium to film and literature, despite your admitted lack of familiarity with the great works of the medium. […] Was not film itself once a new field of art? Did it not also take decades for its academic respectability to be recognized?

Email responds with some good insight:

I did indeed consider video games inherently inferior to film and literature. There is a structural reason for that: Video games by their nature require player choices, which is the opposite of the strategy of serious film and literature, which requires authorial control.

But, in the end:

That a game can aspire to artistic importance as a visual experience, I accept. But for most gamers, video games represent a loss of those precious hours we have available to make ourselves more cultured, civilized and empathetic.

And, once again, I can’t let an Ebert reference pass without mentioning that Ebert has emailed me. Twice.